Thanksgiving Apple Pie

Last week one of my students overheard me talking about the apple pie that I make every year for Thanksgiving. She asked me to post the recipe because she has never made a successful apple pie. So this recipe is for you (you know who you are). 

A little background first. When I was a dietetic intern at Meredith College I took a Food Product Development class where I learned to develop and write recipes (such a wonderful class). One of my classmates chose to develop the best pie crust recipe and used her grandmother's famous apple pie as a starting point. Since we took about 5 weeks to develop our final recipes I tried a lot of this apple pie. It's pretty delicious and I've been making it for Thanksgiving every since. I've put my own twist on it over the years and it just seems to just get better. 

Do you have a special pie you like to make every year? Please tell me about it in a comment. 

Apple Pie with Crumb Topping and Homemade Crust

Crust

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon shortening, chilled, cut into small pieces

2-3 tablespoons cold water

1. In a food processor, pulse together dry ingredients. Add shortening and pulse until flour gets mealy and rises up on the sides. 
2. Transfer mix to a bowl. Sprinkle with water one tablespoon at a time and mix with a pastry cutter until all flour is moistened.
3. Gather dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. 
4. Flour the counter top and roll the dough into a circle with 12" diameter and 1/8" thick.
5. Roll up pastry around rolling pin and trasfer to a pie plate. Gently press pastry into pie plate and cut off any excess around the edges. Shape edge to desired pattern. (Here's a video) Set aside.

Filling

6 cups of peeled, sliced apples (use a mix of Granny Smith, Jazz, Honey Crisp -- whatever you like)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup sugar

The "guts" (seeds) from 1 vanilla bean (Here's a video)

1/4 cup all purpose flour

• Mix all ingredients together until all apples are coated. Pour filling into unbaked pie crust. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Crumb Topping

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

1. Measure dry ingredients into bowl (or can do in a food processor). Add butter in medium chunks and mix with pastry cutter.
2. Blend until butter is  fully incorporatedand there are no large chunks.
3. Sprinkle evenly over apple pie filling to cover.
4. Bake pie at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and baked for 30-35 more minutes. Top should be golden brown and apples should be soft when pierced with knife. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

You can use a frozen pie crust instead of making your own. 

Here I am with my pie several years ago. I'm sorry I don't have a great picture of the pie up close. 

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